History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 4/Chapter 61

 

CHAPTER LXI.

PENNSYLVANIA.^[1]

The thought of woman suffrage in Pennsylvania always brings with it the recollection of Lucretia Mott of Philadelphia, one of the four women who called the first Woman's Rights Convention, at Seneca Falls, N. Y., July 19, 20, 1848, and among the ablest advocates of the measure.^[2]

The Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association was organized Dec. 22, 1869, with Mary Grew as president.^[3] There have been annual meetings in or near Philadelphia regularly since that time, and large quantities of suffrage literature have been distributed.^[4] In 1892 Miss Grew resigned, aged 80, and was succeeded in the presidency by Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg, who still holds this office.

The convention of 1900 took place in Philadelphia, November i, 2, and the other officers elected were vice-president, Mrs. Ellen H. E. Price; corresponding secretary, Mrs. Mary B. Luckie; recording secretary, Mrs. Anna R. Boyd; treasurer, Mrs. Marl garet B. Stone; auditors, Mrs. Mary F. Kenderdine and Mrs. Selina D. Holton. Miss Ida Porter Boyer, superintendent of press work, reported that 326 newspapers in the State, exclusive of those in Philadelphia which were supplied by a local chairman, were using regularly the suffrage matter sent out by her bureau, and that the past year this consisted of 17,150 different articles.

A number of able speakers have addressed the Legislature or canvassed the State from time to time, including Miss Susan B. Anthony and the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, president and vicepresident of the National Association; Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, chairman of the national organization committee; Henry B. Blackwell, editor of the Woman’s Journal; Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Stetson of New York, Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford of Colorado, Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates of Maine, and Miss Laura A. Gregg of Kansas; Judge William N. Ashman, Miss Matilda Hindman, Miss Boyer, Mrs. Blankenburg and Miss Jane Campbell, president of the Philadelphia society.^[5]

The latter is the largest and most influential suffrage society in the State. Previously to 1892 the Philadelphians who were identified with the movement belonged to the Pennsylvania association. In the fall of this year it was decided to make it a delegate body, and as that meant barring out individual memberships, the Philadelphia members formed a county organization. Miss Grew was invited to lead the new society, but feeling unable to perform the necessary duties she accepted only the honorary presidency. It was, however, largely owing to her counsel and influence that so successful a beginning was made. After her death in 1896 the office of honorary president was abolished.

The first president of this society was Miss Campbell, who has been annually re-elected. The club has quadrupled its membership in the eight years of its existence, counting only those who pay their yearly dues, and has now 400 members. It has worked in many directions; distributed large quantities of literature; has sent speakers to organizations of women; fostered debates among the young people of various churches and Young Men’s Literary Societies by offering prizes to those successful on the side of woman suffrage; held public meetings in different parts of the city, which includes the whole county; assisted largely in the national press work, and always lent a generous hand to the enterprises of the National Association.^[6]

In 1895 this society prepared a list of all the real and personal property owned by women within the city limits, which amounted to $153,757,566 real and $35,734,133 personal. These figures comprise 20 per cent. of the total city tax, and all of it is without representation.

With the hope of arousing suffrage sentiment, classes were formed under the auspices of the State association to study political science; Mrs. Susan S. Fessenden of Massachusetts was employed to organize clubs in the State; requests were sent to all the clergymen of Philadelphia to preach a sermon or give an address on Woman Suffrage; and prizes of $5, $10 and $15 were offered for the three best essays on Political Equality for Women, fifty-six being received.

A Yellow Ribbon Bazar was held in Philadelphia in 1895, the net proceeds amounting to over $1,000. Miss Mary G. Hay, Miss Yates and Miss Gregg were then employed as organizers, and were very successful in forming clubs. There are now sixteen active county societies.^[7]

Legislative Action and Laws: In 1885 Miss Matilda Hindman was sent to Harrisburg to urge the Legislature to submit an amendment to the voters striking out the word "male" from the suffrage clause of the State constitution. As a preliminary, 249 letters were sent to members asking their views on the subject; 89 replies were received, 53 non-committal, 20 favorable, 16 unfavorable. Miss Hindman and eleven other women appeared before a Joint Committe of Senate and House to presenarguments in favor of submitting the amendment. A bill for this purpose passed the House, but was lost in the Senate by a vote of 13 ayes, 19 noes. This was the first concerted action of the Pennsylvania suffragists to influence legislation for women. A legacy of $1,390 from Mrs. Mary H. Newbold aided their efforts to secure the bill.

Political conditions have been such that it has been considered useless to try to obtain any legislative action on woman suffrage, and no further attempts have been made. To influence public sentiment, however, mass meetings addressed by the best speakers were held in the Hall of the House of Representatives during the sessions of 1893, '95, '97 and '99.

In 1897 and 1899 the suffragists made strenuous attempts to secure a bill to amend the Intestate Law, which greatly discriminates against married women, but it was killed in committee.

Owing to a gradual advance in public sentiment laws have been enacted from time to time protecting wage-earning women; also enlarging the property rights of wives, enabling them to act as incorporators for business of profit, and giving them freedom to testify in court against their husbands under some circumstances.

In 1891 a number of influential women decided to form a corporation, with a stock company, for the purpose of building a club house and equipping the same to rent as a business of profit. The charter was refused, because several of the women making application were married. After some delay enough single women were found to take out the letters patent. When incorporated the original number organized the company and built the New Century Club House in Philadelphia, which paid five per cent. to stockholders the first year. One of the members of this board of directors, to save time and trouble, made application to be appointed notary public, but she was refused because the law did not permit a woman to serve. Public attention was thus called to the injustice of these statutes and, after much legislative tinkering, laws were passed in 1893 giving wives the same right as unmarried women to "acquire property, own, possess, control, use, lease, etc." The same year women were made eligible to act as notaries public.

Dower and curtesy both obtain. If there is issue living, the widow is entitled to one-third of the real estate for her life and one-third of the personal property absolutely. If no issue is living, but collateral heirs, the widow is entitled to one-half of the real estate, including the mansion house, for her life, and one-half of the personal estate absolutely. If a wife die intestate, the widower, whether there has been issue born alive or not, has a life interest in all her real estate and all of her personal property absolutely. If there is neither issue nor kindred and no will the surviving husband or wife takes the whole estate.

A husband may mortgage real estate, including the homestead, without the wife's consent, but she can not mortgage even her own separate estate without his consent. Each can dispose of personal property as if single.

As a rule a married woman can not make a contract, but there are some exceptions. For instance, she can contract for the purchase of a sewing-machine for her own use. The wife must sue and be sued jointly with the husband.

A married woman must secure the privilege from the court of carrying on business in her own name.

The law provides that the party found guilty of adultery can not. marry the co-respondent during the lifetime of the other party. If any divorced woman, who shall have been found guilty of adultery, shall afterward openly cohabit with the person proved to have been the partaker of her crime, she is rendered incapable of alienating either directly or indirectly any of her lands, tenements or hereditaments, and all wills, deeds, and other instruments Of conveyance therefor are absolutely void, and after her death her property descends and is subject to distribution according to law in like manner as if she had died intestate. This latter clause does not apply to a divorced man.

In June, 1895, through the legislative committee of the State W. S. A., Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg, chairman, and with the co-operation of other women's organizations, the following law, championed by Representative Frank Riter, was secured:

A married woman who contributes by the efforts of her own labor or otherwise toward the support, maintenance and education of her minor child, shall have the same and equal power, control and authority over her said child, and the same and equal right to the custody and services, as are now possessed by her husband who is the father of such minor child.

The best legal authorities are undecided as to whether labor within the household entitles the mother to this equal guardianship or whether it must be performed outside the home. The father is held to be the only person entitled to sue for the earnings" of a minor child, and as no legal means are provided for enforcing the above law it is practically of no effect.

The law says, "As her baron or lord, the husband is bound to provide his wife with shelter, food, clothing and medicine;" also:

If any husband or father neglect to maintain his wife or children, it is lawful for any alderman, justice of the peace or magistrate, upon information made before him, under oath or affirmation, by the wife or children, or by any other person, to issue his warrant for the arrest of the man, and bind him over with one sufficient surety to appear at the next Court of Quarter Sessions, there to answer the said charge. If he is found to be of sufficient ability to pay such sum as the court thinks reasonable and proper, it makes an order for the comfortable support of wife or children, or both, the sum not to exceed the amount of $100 per month. The man is to be committed to jail until he complies with the order of the court, or gives security for the payment of the sum. After three months' imprisonment, if the court find him unable to pay or give security, it may discharge him.

In 1887 the "age of protection" for girls was raised from 10 to 16 years. The penalty is a fine not exceeding $1,000, and imprisonment by separate and solitary confinement at labor, or simple imprisonment, not exceeding fifteen years. No minimum penalty is named.

Suffrage: Women possess no form of suffrage.

Office Holding:^[8] The State constitution of 1873 made women eligible for all school offices, but they have had great difficulty in securing any of these. Out of 16,094 school directors in the State only thirty-two are women. In Philadelphia a Board of Public Education, appointed by the courts, co-operates with the school directors. This board consists of forty-one members, Only three being women. In the entire State, six women are reported to be now filling the offices of county and city school superintendent and assistant superintendent.

In seventeen years but sixty-seven women (in twelve counties) have been appointed members of the Boards of Public Charities.

In 1899 a law was passed recognizing Accounting as a profession, and Miss Mary B. Niles is now a Certified Public Accountant and Auditor.

There have been women on the Civil Service Examining Board for nurses, matrons, etc., but there are none at present.

To Pennsylvania belongs the honor of appointing the first woman in a hospital for the insane with exclusive charge — Dr. Alice Bennett, Norristown Asylum, in 1880. Now all of the six State hospitals for the insane employ women physicians. In Philadelphia there are five hospitals under the exclusive control of women.

Women have entire charge of the female prisoners in the Philadelphia County jail. Police matrons are on duty at many of the station houses in cities of the first and second class, sixteen in Philadelphia.

Committees of women, officially appointed, visit all the public institutions of Philadelphia and Montgomery counties.

Dr. Frances C. Van Gasken served several years as health inspector, the only woman to fill such an office in Philadelphia.

Six women are employed as State factory inspectors and receive the same salary as the men inspectors.

Within the past ten years a large number of women have become city librarians through appointment by the Common Councils.

Mrs. Margaret Center Klingelsmith, LL. B., is librarian of the State University Law School, but has been refused admission to the Academy of Law (Bar Association) of Philadelphia, although there is a strong sentiment in her favor led by George E Nitzsche, registrar of the Law School.

Occupations: The only prohibited industry is mining. No professions are legally forbidden to women.

In 1884 a graduate of the Law Department of the University of Pennsylvania, Mrs. Carrie Burnham Kilgore, made the fight; for the admission of women to the bar and was herself finally admitted to practice in the courts of Philadelphia. Judges William S. Pierce, William N. Ashman and Thomas K. Finletter advocated this advanced step.

There are 150 women physicians in Philadelphia alone.

Education: The Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia, Clara Marshall, M. D., dean, was incorporated in 1850.^[9] The idea of its establishment originated with Dr. Bartholomew Fussell, a member of the Society of Friends. Its foundation was made possible through the effective work of Dr. Joseph S. Longshore in securing a charter from the Legislature. Dr. Hannah Myers Longshore was a member of the first graduating class, a pioneer among women physicians, and through her skill and devotion won high rank in her profession.^[10] In 1867 the name was changed by decree of court from Female Medical College to Woman's Medical College. It is the oldest and largest medical school for women in the world, and has nearly 1,000 alumnae, including students from nineteen foreign countries. The management is entirely in the hands of women.

In 1861 the Woman's Hospital was founded, mainly through the efforts of Dr. Ann Preston, to afford women the clinical opportunities denied by practically all the existing hospitals. It is now one of the largest in Philadelphia.

During the past twenty years a number of educational institutions have been opened to women. Of the forty colleges and universities in the State, just one-half are co-educational; three are for women alone; two Catholic, one military and fourteen others are for men alone. Off the sixteen theological seminaries, only one, the Unitarian at Meadville, admits women. They have the full privileges of the Colleges of Pharmacy and Dentistry in Philadelphia.

The principal institutions closed to women are the Jefferson Medical, Hahnemann Medical, Medico-Chirurgical, Franklin and Marshall, Haverford, Lafayette, Moravian, Muhlenberg, St. Vincent, Washington and Jefferson, Waynesburg, Lehigh and most of the departments of the Western University.

In the University of Pennsylvania (State) women are admitted on equal terms with men to the post-graduate department; as candidates for the Master of Arts degree; and to the four years' course in biology, leading to the degree of B. S. They may take special courses in pedagogy, music and interior decoration (in the Department of Architecture) but no degree. The Medical, Dental and Veterinary Departments are entirely closed to them. Of the large departments, Law is the only one which is fully, freely and heartily open to women on exactly the same terms as to men, and it confers the degree of LL. B. upon both alike. There are no women on the faculty, but Prof. Sara Yorke Stevenson, the distinguished archæologist, is secretary of the Department of Archælogy and Paleontology and curator of the Egyptian and Mediterranean Section.

The Drexel Institute, founded and endowed by Anthony J. Drexel, was opened in December, 1891. Instruction is given in the arts, sciences and industries. All the departments are open to women on the same terms as to men. Booker T. Washington has a free scholarship for a pupil, and one is held by the Carlisle Indian School.

Bryn, Mawr, non-sectarian, but founded by Joseph W. Taylor, M. D., a member of the Society of Friends, was opened in 1885. It stands at the head of the women’s colleges of the world, and ranks with the best colleges for men. Miss M. Carey Thomas, Ph. D., LL. D., is president.

Notwithstanding these splendid educational advantages, as late as 1891 there was no opportunity in the Philadelphia public schools for a girl to prepare for college or for a business office. In 1893 the present superintendent, Edward Brooks, reorganized the Girls’ High School, arranging a four years’ classical course and a three years’ business course.

There are in the public schools 9,360 men and 19,469 women teachers. The average monthly salary of the men is $42.69; of the women, $38.45. In Philadelphia the average for men is $121.93; for women, $67.61. In this city, by decree of the board of education, the highest positions are closed to women.

 

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Pennsylvania is rich in women’s clubs, 117 belonging to the State Federation. The three largest are the New Century, with 600 members; Civic, 500; New Century Guild (workingwomen), 400—all in Philadelphia. Most of the clubs have civic departments. The suffrage societies have full membership — in the State Federation of Clubs. The Civic and Legal Education Society of Philadelphia, composed of men and women, has lecture courses on national, State and municipal government and a practical knowledge of law. A study class of municipal law is conducted by Mrs. Margaret Center Klingelsmith, the law librarian of the State University.

 

1. The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Lucretia Longshore Blankenburg of Philadelphia, who has been president of the State Suffrage Association since 1892.
2. See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. I, p. 67.
3. Officers in 1884: President, Mary Grew; vice-presidents, John K. Wildman, Ellen M. Child, Passmore Williamson; corresponding secretary, Florence A. Burleigh; recording secretary, Anna Shoemaker; treasurer, Annie Heacock; executive committee, Mary S. Hillborn, Martha B. Earle, Sarah H. Peirce, Gertrude K. Peirce, Joshua Peirce, Leslie Miller, Maria P. Miller, Harriet Purvis, Caroline L. Broomall, Deborah Pennock, J. E Case, Matilda Hindman, Dr. Hiram Corson.
4. These meetings have been held in Chester, West Chester, Lancaster, Reading, Lewistown, Oxford, Kennett Square, Norristown, Scranton, Pittsburg, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Chester and Columbia.
5. For an account of the Citizens’ Suffrage Association, Edward M. Davis, president, see Vol. III, p. 461.
6. At the annual meeting of October, 1900, the following were elected: President, Miss Jane Campbell; vice-presidents, Miss Eliza Heacock and Miss Elizabeth Dornan; corresponding secretary, Miss Katherine J. Campbell; recording secretary, Mrs. Olive Pond Amies; treasurer, Mrs. Mary F. Kenderdine. Sixteen delegates were elected to represent the society at the State convention.
7. Among the men and women who have been especially helpful to the cause of woman suffrage since 1884, besides those already mentioned, are Robert Purvis, John M. Broomall, Edward M. Davis; Drs. Hannah E. Longshore, Jane V. Myers, Jane K. Garver; Mesdames Rachel Foster Avery, Emma J. Bartol, Eliza Sproat Turner, Elizabeth B. Passmore, J. L. Koethen, Jr., Helen Mosher James, Charlotte L. Peirce, Ellen C. H. Ogden, Mary E. Mumford, Elizabeth Smith, J. M. Harsh, J. W. Scheel, H. C. Perkins, Hanna M. Harlan: Misses Julia T, Foster, M. Adeline Thomson, Susan G. Appleton, Julia A. Myers, L. M. Mather, Lucy E. Anthony.
8. William and Hannah Penn were both Proprietary Governors of the colony, William from the time of its settlement in 1682 until 1712, when he was stricken with illness. Hannah then took up the affairs and administered as governor until William's death in 1717, and after that time until her son became of age.  Sidney Fisher, in his account of the Pennsylvania colony, says that this is the only instance in history where a woman has acted as Proprietary Governor. Hannah Penn was skilful in her management and retained the confidence of the people through financial and political embarrassments.
9. See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. I, p. 389.
10. Drs. Joseph and Hannah Myers Longshore were the uncle and mother of Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg. [Eds.